


life's no longer empty

by ravenreyamidala



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fix It Fic, Fuck Canon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:08:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27640022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenreyamidala/pseuds/ravenreyamidala
Summary: Dean finds a way to get to the Empty. He finds the Shadow. And the Shadow casts him out before Dean can even try to make a deal.And after that, Dean has a good life.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	life's no longer empty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khashana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/gifts).



> I don't even go here. But....here's some fix-it fic.

Dean finds a way to get to the Empty. He finds the Shadow. 

And the Shadow casts him out before Dean can even try to make a deal. 

\--

Sam and Eileen get married. They have a daughter they name Mary, and a son they name Bobby. Eileen kicks Sam out of the room for the third kid, and when the doctor tells them it’s a girl, Dean and Sam clink their bottles of El Sol together and chug. 

It’s better than anything he’s ever shared with his dad. 

\--

It’s not like Dean doesn’t date. He does. Leggy blondes, curvacious redheads, gregarious brunettes who snooker him at pool, ethereal bisexuals. It’s not so much dating as much as it is hooking up, but Dean’s never really been one for commitment. He stays in one place for too long, and it’s like his skin starts itching, and it won’t stopped til he’s moved. A lifetime of moving will do that to a person, Sam says. 

Eileen says he should go to therapy, but that would mean he’d have to stand still longer than he’d like. 

No, he has to keep moving forward. Keep going. He’ll go mad with paranoia if he stops. The Impala’s odometer stopped working before Baby hit 200k, but Dean wouldn’t be surprised if he’s travelled a million miles in his trusty car by now. 

Maybe not. But he wouldn’t be surprised, is all. 

\--

One day he finds himself on Stanford campus. He FaceTimes Sam and Eileen in the evenings, and usually has the longer conversation with Eileen, Sam in the background focused on helping the kids with their homework. 

Sam’s a good dad. Dean doesn’t regret much and he doesn’t regret settling down, but he did want to be a dad. A kid to teach out a car engine works and how to change the oil and how to drive, and how to pick out good diners from bad ones, and how to hustle people at pool. 

Dean doesn’t run into any monsters except the ones that haunt his dreams. He doesn’t know if they’re gone, but none of his phones rings, and he doesn’t hear about any. 

He doesn’t go looking either. 

\--

Eventually he circles back to Kansas, to the house with the white picket fence and big backyard, and with a new puppy that looks absolutely comical in Sam’s lumberjack hands. Sam’s found work as a computer programmer nearby, having taught himself some language or another. Something about snakes and coffee, but heck if Dean can remember. Sam’s the smart one, always has been. 

He teaches the kids his mom’s apple pie recipe, and takes Mary to get a pixie cut from one of Dean’s old flames when her parents aren’t looking. Eileen’s upset for a moment about Dean not asking permission, but Dean just shrugs and says Mary wanted the haircut, and that’s that. 

When the kids are in bed (but not asleep, judging from Mary’s faint giggles), the three adults sit in the small study area and drink various things (Sam has disgusting green juice, Dean has a Shirley Temple that’s more grenadine than lime-flavored vodka, and Eileen sips some hot chocolate, fire blazing in the hearth). 

It’s a good life. Dean’s pretty content. He looks across the room when Eileen and Sam get touchy feely and reads the titles of the parenting self help books on the bookcase there. Sam has a lot of them, probably more than any bookstore. 

Dean’s wistful for a moment. He thinks,  _ Sam would have explained, if _ …

He doesn’t finish the thought. 

It’s a good life. No use dwelling on might-have-beens. 

\--

A baby shows up in the impala’s backseat one day. Dean was sleeping off a hangover, and so didn’t hear the person break in, and bam, baby and properly installed carseat. 

More accurately, bam, crying baby. 

There’s no note. He names her Cassandra and calls her Andy. 

\-- 

Sam does help Dean, when Dean gets into parenting pickles. And Dean does have to stand still for the first time in his life, because Andy is just like her uncle, and Dean won’t be like John. He’ll let her put down roots. She and Sam’s youngest, Jess are thick as thieves from day one, and Dean knows how important it is for her to have someone. How important it was- is for him to have Sam. To have. 

No use dwelling on once-weres, he reminds himself. 

And then Andy gets a scholarship to Stanford, and Dean knows not to follow her there. Sam goes and helps settle Andy instead, old hat after sending three kids away. 

Dean should have gone. But if he had gone, he wouldn’t have let Andy go. So it’s better, that they didn’t have a fight. 

Andy calls regularly, and so slowly Dean stops panicking that she’ll disappear like Sam did. 

He goes to therapy. It’s long overdue. But it’s also as frustrating as it is helpful, because he can’t talk about half of the stuff he did before the Empty without a lot of censoring. 

He’s always been a smooth talker, but the therapist is no nonsense. He stops seeing them after one too many slipups.

\-- 

The next time he gets the itch under his skin, he goes to the nearest gay bar in his best flannel and cleanest V-neck, channeling Dr. Sexy as much as possible, and ends up in a miraculously clean single-occupant bathroom on his knees for a dark-haired, blue-eyed giant who makes even Dean,  _ who isn’t short, Sammy is just a freak of nature _ , feel small. 

The man chuckles when Dean chokes not even three inches in, and Dean feels his hackles go up, but the man just flattens one pan sized hand over Dean’s head, curling around the curve of it, and encourages him gently, and soon Dean’s got a dick down his throat and he likes it. 

\--

Andy eventually goes on to be Senator. No one is prouder than Dean, and he can see how wistful Sam is. He tells Sam, that should have been you. 

He tells Sam, I’m sorry for coming to Stanford that night. 

And Sam says, I’m not. 

\--

Dean and Sam live long, happy, full lives. Sam somehow goes first, despite all his healthy living. Dean chalks it up to all the sodium helping him to stay preserved or something, but he knows he’s not long for the world after Sam’s ashes are gathered in the urn that sits on Bobby’s mantle. 

\--

He sees Sam and John and Mary and Bobby and Jody and Charlie and Kevin and countless other people. He’s there to greet Andy when it’s her turn. 

Every time he turns a corner, he braces himself, but he’s never surprised. Until one day, the day Andy’s littlest grandkid is due, and he’s got Sam in a headlock, and the room is full of laughter, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 

He goes outside, and no one is there. He sighs. Turns back to go in. And then from behind him. 

“Hello, Dean.” 

**Author's Note:**

> leave a kudo if you hated the series finale


End file.
